Category: PHP

A while back I made a post about the PasteLock service I’ve developed and published. It took me quite a while to develop the service, mainly due to the fact that I am not a webdesigner, I’m a webdeveloper. As such, I usually open up Adobe Dreamweaver to develop anything that requires HTML and CSS work. Why Dreamwaver? You must be cringing if you think I need a WYSIWYG editor to create a website. This is not the case, but I like to see what I develop when I develop it.

Unlike before I decided not to go with Dreamweaver for once and try something new. I came across a web development suite that seemed to meet all of my requirements. WeBuilder 2014, still in beta at the time, had all of the tools I needed, like syntax highlighting, extensive code completion, a live browser preview and even support for PHP debugging. As I was immediately won over by the extensive feature list, I decided to give it a try.

Some PHP software, such as MediaWiki, prefer for servers to have the “intl” PECL package to be installed. On Ubuntu you can insall it as a precompiled package from the official repositories:

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sudo apt-get install php5-intl--no-install-recommends

If you start from a clean Ubuntu install and you want to build the package yourself, you might not have all of the dependencies installed. Run this command to make sure you have all of the prerequisites installed:

For a while now I’ve been playing around with a couple of ideas for new projects in my head. I finally decided to go through with turning one of these ideas into reality. The result is PasteLock.

PasteLock is a pastebin style site where you can host pieces of text or code, so you can easily distribute it to your friend and colleagues. There are already many pastebin services out there, but I wanted to set out to create something special. This pastebin offers something different than most other pastebins, as it offers security.

When you create a paste, the title and paste content is encrypted in the database with a randomized encryption key which is never stored on the server. The encryption is powered by the AES-256 encryption algorithm. On top of the server-side encryption of the data, PasteLock also actively enforces a verified SSL connection to ensure that your connection to the site is secure and can’t be intercepted. In the event that the site were to switch to a stronger encryption algorithm, the data will also be automatically re-encrypted with the stronger algorithm when it is being accessed.

Syntax highlighting is of course available for about every programming language out there. The pastes that have been posted can easily be printed or downloaded from the site with the click of a button. For printing, the site provides a clean print-friendly format.